ADVENTURES WITH BIRDS OF PREY
A RAVEN "GLEE CLUB" SINGS LUSTILY AT MEALTIME
The three hungry young birds, their mouths agape, wait impatiently while their wary mother and
her mate (right) make sure that the camera is harmless. Carrion and other food, swallowed and partly
digested by the old bird, is regurgitated to the young, which are fed in this way until they are able
to fly. The nest is made of large sticks and lined with horsehair, taken probably from dead animals
on which the ravens have fed (page 120).
climbed over the cliff, while Steve, Julian,
and I held tightly to the rope, with our
feet braced against a large bowlder. In
our haste and ignorance, we forgot to re
move the loose rocks near the rope. We
saw the danger only after a large rock had
hit Frank a glancing blow on the leg.
In attempting to remove the rocks, we
loosened several others which fell the fifty
feet to the ledge before we could utter a
warning and then crashed on down the
eight-hundred-foot slope. We could not
see Frank from the top and we feared to
call to see whether he had been struck. We
were certainly relieved when we heard a
string of cuss words come from the ledge.
We got our pictures and hawks without
further mishap and started to pull Frank
up, but we loosened so many rocks that we
decided to lower him instead. The rope
was fifteen feet short, so we threw Frank
a piece of clothesline to tie to the lower
end. The clothesline broke when Frank
was ten feet from the bottom.
This incident taught us that a cliff is
no place to practice trial and error methods.
Whether photographing from a tree or a
cliff, our motto now is: "Try to be careful.
It is not likely that you can be careless
more than once."
Between trips to the duck hawk and
raven eyries we spent our time photograph-
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